What would an Iranian secularism look like ?

Iranians are discussing many important and crucial things these days: things that the government might not be able to find an answer to in the foreseeable future.

Girls walking in front of walls of the former US embassy on Taleghani street, Tehran. Picture by Kamyar Adl / Flickr.com. Some rights reserved (CC BY 2.0).The Iranian
government is not determined enough to implement change, nor does it
have the authority and resources to embrace the reforms people are
demanding. Meanwhile, in restaurants, coffee shops, streets, schools,
newspapers and sometimes even on state TV, people are discussing and
talking about reform.

People ask valid
questions that rarely find viable answers by those who are supposed
to find answers: will women, comprising half of Iran's population, be
finally
officially permitted to watch football matches live in stadiums?
Will the debate
on the necessity or appropriateness of "compulsory veil"
come to an end, as there's no "solution" for what
seems to be a "social dilemma" rather than a
"problem" or as what some religious
figures say, a "moral crisis" being injected
from the overseas to pollute the pious minds? Will Iranian males,
after graduating with their bachelors, refrain from harming
themselves physically,
i.e. pulling out their healthy teeth, or paying absence
fines in order to avoid being enlisted for compulsory military
service? Will Iranian sports be depoliticized with Iranian wrestlers,
sportswomen, chess-players and other athletes stop losing
international opportunities or being penalised due to their voluntary
or involuntary
decisions in refusing to face Israeli opponents?

Iran is an Islamic republic by definition but a theocracy in action

Iran is an
Islamic republic by definition but a theocracy in action; Its
constitution, drafted in 1979, has remained almost unchanged since;
it is comparable to that of France, making it resistant to dialogue
and improvement in many areas. When the angry Iranian protesters took
to the streets to overthrow Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's monarchy,
they were dreaming of such ideals as independence, freedom,
self-determination and a better economy.

However, ideals
are ideals.

What is the
reality of the 21st century Iran? A society imbued with
social divides, challenges, low self-esteem among the young
population, life satisfaction figures that are a bit worrying, while
youths and people in power are unable to understand or relate to one
another. This doesn't mean that Iran is a failed
state like Sudan or Syria. It means forty years after those
ideals won hearts and minds, almost nothing has really changed.

The country's
religious figures, government and even military officials talk about
moral
and ethical values that will guarantee the worldly and divine
wellbeing of its people if they follow them closely. And there are
hundreds of ways these values and principles can be interpreted and
applied to different groups of people. Some find it useful to follow
those guidelines while others less so. But "theocracy"
seeks to make a monolithic society with a face that acts as a "role
model", especially in the eyes of the Muslim world: a nation
that is making progress economically and scientifically while
preserving its traditions and virtues. This is where
the clash between the state and the nation emerges.

Iranians,
especially the youth, don't clearly understand the reasons these
struggles are still going on three decades after the Islamic
Revolution. The authorities, who are clearly convinced that there's
nothing to threaten the national security or stability of the
government, insist on imposing their preferred lifestyle and
worldview on a population, which considers itself knowledgeable,
self-sufficient and informed enough to act on their instincts, their
own understanding of the world and preferences instead of what is
dictated to them as right or wrong.

Iranians expect more concrete evidence of "reform"

However, with
President Rouhani in office, Iranians expect more concrete evidence
of "reform" in the sense that their expectation of privacy,
their right to make their life choices freely, and their right to
live free from intimidation and interference is respected. The
longstanding debate on "hijab" and other compulsory things,
has exhausted the public opinion and people are looking forward to
newer developments and sustainable solutions to the problems that are
critical: will the nation's younger generation get the education that
it deserves with the Ministry of Education making a sober decision to
find a unified, integrated and viable approach to things for the
primary school sitters or students attending secondary schools, whose
arrangement and structure change almost every couple of years?

Will the brain
drain become a thing of the past for a country in which the
elites and exceptional talents are unanimous in thinking that "this
country will not change for the better and we need to go". Will
media, arts, cinema and sports be depoliticized with the government
reducing its massive interventionist role in these areas while it
doesn't apparently provide any measures to patronize cinema, theatre
and music financially or logistically? Will the government give a
clear response to the question that many Iranians are asking: "where
is Iran's nuclear programme headed to?"

The Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, popularly known as the Iran
deal, was negotiated between Iran and the six world powers and
the European Union and endorsed by the United Nations to draw an end
to a controversy that had already inflicted thousands of dollars of
financial damage on Iran, claimed thousands of innocent lives and
deprived the nation of the chance to enjoy connection with the global
financing and banking system. When asking the government, Iranians
were and are being told that the aim of this costly nuclear program
and imploring the Russians to sustain it is to produce Nano-medicine
and harness it for agricultural purposes.

Few wise Iranians
understood and believed why manufacturing some medicine to treat
cancer patients and improve agriculture should buy Iran this much
animosity and hostility with the world. If these are benign goals,
then the international community should be happy and ready to work
with Iran on them. And if Iranian scientists are really intent on
finding viable solutions to cure thousands of cancer patients
suffering
across this country or alleviate their pain, they can come up with
realistic keys to achieve it, which is not necessarily nuclear
technology or highly-enriched uranium.

Now, global
political developments, the intransigence of the new US President
Donald Trump who is intent on unilaterally de-certifying the deal and
Iran's internal struggles, especially its clashes with its youths,
which sends wrong signals to the international community and make the
country's European partners more reluctant in engaging in better
relations and more stress-free negotiations with Tehran on areas of
mutual interest, economy, tourism and human rights highlight the
urgent need for the authorities in Tehran to take a few points into
consideration.

The Iranian version of secularism doesn't need to be prescribed by anybody

In every country,
certain cultural and ideological rules and norms apply that are
dominant and inviolable. Iran is one of those countries which sees
its version of an Islamic republic an ideal mode of governance. When
there are authors, intellectuals or university professors who talk
about the need for Iran to give in to some extent of secularism, Shia
clerics and religious authorities get together and embark on a debate
about the west's cultural infiltration and the enemy's
plans to undermine Iran's national security, unity and morality. The
narrative of enemy and recounting the harms they've inflicted
on us is something that most of the time creates unity in times of
need. But can it play the same role indefinitely?

As an Iranian
citizen, having lived the longest part of my life in this country and
spent the rest traveling internationally as a journalist and
reporter, I think the Iranian version of secularism doesn't need to
be prescribed by anybody or be a very complicated replica of the
French or British or American models. The Iranian version of
secularism can be simpler, more straightforward and workable than
many think. Iranian authorities should start following the path of
"honesty is the best policy"; to tell people why certain
things cannot be changed, why some changes take some time to happen,
why some changes never happen, and if there's any public interest in
the preclusion of some changes and reforms!

The Iranian
government needs to start taking a more friendly and transparent
approach to its citizens and people: to explain to them if the
sustained imposition of certain social restrictions and the inability
of its different departments to cap the extra-judicial role of
clerics, military and non-related actors in civilian and daily
matters is something institutional or something that benefits
themselves. For instance, will all those Iranian males who spend 18
and 24 months in military service become better citizens or is it a
matter of fulfilling budgetary and power goals?

Isn't it time for
the Iranian government to focus on improving the value of the Iranian
passport, the quality of life and social cohesion instead of fighting
to demonstrate that the status quo is ideal, at any expense, whereas
what is being seen on the streets and reflected in the realities of
economy, foreign policy and the continued existence of social
divisions shows otherwise?

About the author

Kourosh Ziabari is studying International Multimedia Journalism at the University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism. He is a 2016–17 Chevening Scholar from Iran. He has won several awards at Iran’s National Press Festival. He is the recipient of a Senior Journalists Seminar 2015 fellowship from the East-West Center in Hawaii and covered the World Forum for Democracy 2016 in Strasbourg on a fellowship by the Council of Europe. Kouro​sh​ writes for Fair Observer and International Policy Digest on Iranian politics and culture​ and also contributes to the Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Follow him on
Twitter: @KZiabari.

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